You are on page 1of 53

Study on the Development of Transboundary Natural

Resource Management Areas in Southern Africa

COMMUNITY PERSPECTIVES

Simon C. Metcalfe
The Biodiversity Support Program
The Biodiversity Support Program (BSP) is a consortium of World Wildlife Fund, The Nature
Conservancy, and World Resources Institute, funded by the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID). BSP’s mission is to promote conservation of the world’s
biological diversity. We believe that a healthy and secure living resource base is essential to meet
the needs and aspirations of present and future generations.

BSP Communications
Our communications activities are designed to share what we are learning about how best to
achieve conservation while doing it. To accomplish this, we try to analyze both our successes and
our failures. We hope our work will serve conservation practitioners as a catalyst for further
discussion, learning, and action so that more biodiversity is conserved. Our communications
programs include print publications, web sites, presentations, and workshops.
Visiting BSP Web Sites
We invite you to visit our general and program-specific web sites at the following addresses:
www.BSPonline.org
Biodiversity Support Program
www.BCNet.org
Biodiversity Conservation Network
http://carpe.gecp.virginia.edu/
CARPE: Central African Regional Program for the Environment
www.bsp-kemala.or.id/
KEMALA: Supporting Indonesian NGOs for Community Based Natural Resource Management
BSP Listserv
Register to receive e-mail updates about BSP through www.BSPonline.org. Click on the yellow
button marked stay informed, send us your e-mail, and we’ll keep you posted on what’s new
from BSP, including project highlights, upcoming events, and our latest publications.
Ordering BSP Publications
Many of our print publications are now also available online at www.BSPonline.org. From the
home page, click on publications to view them online or order copies to be sent to you. You
may also contact us by mail, phone or fax to request copies.
Biodiversity Support Program Phone: 202-861-8347
c/o World Wildlife Fund Fax: 202-861-8324
1250 24th St. NW E-mail: BSP@wwfus.org
Washington, DC 20037 USA Web Site: www.BSPonline.org

Publication Credits
Author: Simon C. Metcalfe
Cover Design: Chris Henke
Printing: Balmar Solutions in Print
BSP Director of Communications: Sheila Donoghue
Director of BSP’s Africa & Madagascar Program and BSP Executive Director: Judy Oglethorpe

Please cite this publication as: Metcalfe, Simon C. 1999. Study on the Development of Transboundary
Natural Resource Management Areas in Southern Africa—Community Perspectives. Biodiversity Support
Program, Washington, DC, USA.
Study on the Development of Transboundary Natural
Resource Management Areas in Southern Africa

COMMUNITY PERSPECTIVES

ii
CONTENTS
BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY............................................................................................. IV
CLARIFYING TERMINOLOGY: TBCA/TFCA AND TBNRM .................................................... VI
1. INTRODUCTION: COMMUNITIES AND THE CONSERVATION POLICY DISCOURSE ... 1
2. LOCATION OF COMPONENTS OF CBNRM IN THE CONTEXT OF TBCA/TBNRMAS ... 4
2.1 HIERARCHIES RELATED TO THE MANAGEMENT OF COMMUNITY-BASED RESOURCES ........................... 6
TABLE 2. CRITICAL LEVELS IN COMMUNITY PROPERTY ARRANGEMENTS* ................................................ 7
2.2 CUSTOMARY CBNRM INSTITUTIONS (FROM MICRO TO MESO) ........................................................... 7
2.3 USER-GROUP INSTITUTIONS AND CBNRM ......................................................................................... 7
2.4 NATURAL RESOURCE GOVERNANCE INSTITUTIONS ............................................................................ 9
3. COMMUNITIES AND OTHER STAKEHOLDERS .............................................................11
3.1 GOVERNMENT AND COMMUNITIES.................................................................................................... 11
3.2 THE PRIVATE SECTOR AND COMMUNITIES ....................................................................................... 11
3.3 NGOS AND COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANISATIONS ............................................................................ 12
3.4 DONORS AND COMMUNITIES ............................................................................................................ 13
3.5 RESEARCH AND COMMUNITIES ........................................................................................................ 14
4. CONSTRAINTS FACING TBNRMAS FROM A COMMUNITY PERSPECTIVE ................15
4.1 SUMMARY OF M AIN CONSTRAINTS................................................................................................... 15
4.2 CONSTRAINTS ELABORATED ........................................................................................................... 16
5. OPPORTUNITIES FOR TBNRMAS FROM A COMMUNITY PERSPECTIVE ...................28
5.1 M AIN OPPORTUNITIES ..................................................................................................................... 28
5.2 OPPORTUNITIES ELABORATED ........................................................................................................ 28
6. INTERVENTIONS TO RESOLVE CONSTRAINTS AND ENHANCE OPPORTUNITIES...32
6.1 SUMMARY OF INDICATED INTERVENTIONS ........................................................................................ 32
6.2 INTERVENTIONS ELABORATED ......................................................................................................... 32
7. INDICATIVE PRINCIPLES FOR ENGAGING COMMUNITIES IN THE TBNRMA
PROCESS .........................................................................................................................36
8. CONCLUSION...................................................................................................................39
REFERENCES .........................................................................................................................40
APPENDIX: A CONTEXTUAL “SNAPSHOT” OF CBNRM IN SOUTHERN AFRICA .............42
LIST OF CONTACTS: ..............................................................................................................44

iii
Background to the Study
“Regional cooperation is not an optional extra; it is a matter of survival.”

SADC Policy and Strategy for Environment and


Sustainable Development (ELMS, 1993, p.3)

International borders are political, not ecological, boundaries. As such, key ecological
systems and components often occur in two or more nations and are subject to a range of often
opposing management and land-use practices. In order to ensure that future generations have
sufficient access to natural resources, the management of water catchments, ecosystems, and
migratory wildlife must become more multinational and participatory across local, national, and
international levels.

USAID’s Regional Center for Southern Africa (RCSA) funded the Biodiversity Support
Program (BSP), a USAID-funded consortium of World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy,
and World Resources Institute, to conduct an assessment and preliminary analysis of issues,
approaches, and targets of opportunity related to the development of transboundary natural
resource management areas in southern Africa. Geographically, the study covered Angola,
Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania,
Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

The study was implemented by the following team:

John Griffin Team Leader and Institutional, Policy, and Legal Analyst
David Cumming Conservation Biologist/Park Management Specialist
(WWF SARPO)
Simon Metcalfe Sociologist
Mike t’ Sas-Rolfes Economist
Jaidev "Jay” Singh Global Review Consultant
Ebenizário Chonguiça Angola Consultant (IUCN Mozambique)
Mary Rowen USAID Liaison, Technical Advisor, and Editor
(AAAS Fellow, USAID)
Judy Oglethorpe Study Manager and Technical Advisor (Executive Director, BSP)

GIS support was provided by WWF SARPO (Southern Africa Regional Programme Office).
Peace Parks Foundation (PPF) undertook a literature collection and established databases on
TBCA literature and regional contacts. Zimbabwe Trust provided administrative and logistical
support in the region. Dorothy Zbicz provided information on the number and distribution of
TBCAs worldwide.

The study process consisted of the following: a review of relevant available literature;
individual consultations in the region with stakeholders; development and circulation of draft
papers on specific topics; three consultative meetings (with stakeholders, SASUSG members,
and a large final meeting with regional stakeholders); and distribution of a draft final report for
comment.

iv
The five reports from the Study on the Development of Transboundary Natural
Resource Management Areas in Southern Africa are as follows:

1. Main Report,

2. Environmental Context,

3. Community Perspectives,

4. Global Review, and

5. Highlights and Findings.

In addition to assisting USAID/RCSA in its strategic planning, this study, as well as the
consultations and meetings associated with it, have encouraged and fostered TBNRM
discussions in the region. It is hoped that the study’s documents are used by all interested
stakeholders to further the TBNRM process.

v
Clarifying Terminology: TBCA/TFCA and TBNRM
The terms Transboundary Conservation Areas (TBCA) and Transfrontier Conservation Areas
(TFCA) are based upon the idea of some aspect of shared environmental management
between nations. No real distinction exists between these two terms; they are used
interchangeably in the region and in the literature.

The World Bank defines TFCAs as:

"Relatively large areas, which straddle frontiers (boundaries) between two or more
countries and cover large-scale natural systems encompassing one or more protected
areas."

World Bank, 1996

These terms were considered to have a strong "protected area" focus, and did not
necessarily account for natural resource management outside of gazetted protected areas.
Hence, the study team has coined a new term to incorporate a more holistic approach, known
as Transboundary Natural Resource Management (TBNRM). TBNRM incorporates the
concerns of natural resource management, people, political institutions, and national and
international organisations, both inside and outside of gazetted protected areas.

The term Transboundary Natural Resource Management Area (TBNRMA) is defined as


follows:

"An area in which cooperation to manage natural resources occurs across boundaries."

The process itself is called Transboundary Natural Resource Management (TBNRM) and is
defined as:

"Any process of cooperation across boundaries that facilitates or improves the


management of natural resources (to the benefit of all parties in the area concerned)."

The emphasis here is on the process, not the geographic area. Hence, if it serves the
function of TBNRM, then it is a TBNRMA. A TBNRMA exists as soon as there occurs any type
of TBNRM activity represented by some institution (be it a contract, protocol, management plan,
or communication forum [formal or informal]).

vi
1. Introduction: Communities and the Conservation Policy
Discourse
This section of the study on the Development of Transboundary Natural Resource Management
Areas (TBNRMAs) in southern Africa emphasises rural community perspectives. A substantial
technical and institutional base has been developed over the last decade in the region related to
Community-based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM).i The rapid growth of CBNRM
initiatives has taken on characteristics of a programmatic, even a social, movement with a life of
its own. Hundreds of communities are involved in the process, and many of them are situated
in a transboundary context. These communities are well aware that political and administrative
boundaries are often not contiguous with local cultural, ecological, or trade systems. National
boundaries were not premised on community land-use perspectives; quite the reverse, as
virtually all the “modern” national and administrative boundaries have required communities to
make significant adjustments to their forms of social organisation and their means of meeting
livelihood needs.

A large part of the apparent success of CBNRM has occurred because it focuses on
communities themselves. It is profoundly hoped that this positive development is carried
forward in relation to TBNRMAs, so that communities are not pushed to the margins of
protected areas and form weak partnerships with governmental and private-sector agencies.
The degree to which communities become real partners in, or only “beneficiaries” of, TBNRMA
projects will be an important indicator of the long-term sociopolitical sustainability and strength
of TBNRMA programs. Informal transboundary activities already exist between communities
that could be nurtured further rather than be overwhelmed by increased regional political
diplomacy, governmental bureaucracy, conservation advocacy, self-promoting publicity, and
tourist market forces.

As local, national, and regional phenomena, who will dominate the “discourse” related to the
ii iii
promotion and establishment of TBCAs or TBNRMAs? , Despite millennia of coexistence with
the African environment, the Indigenous Peoples were not active participants in the colonial
discourse related to conservation (Crosby 1986; Anderson and Grove 1987). The dominant
theme in species conservation related extinction as a consequence of human action, which
generated the attempt to reserve places for nature and to separate humans from other species.
The idea of "fortress conservation" dominated the discourse in sub-Saharan Africa. African
communities were cast in the role of "poachers," and the state in the more glamorous role of
"gamekeeper"’ (Hulme and Murphree, forthcoming; MacKenzie 1987). The emergence of the
"independent" political regimes alienated Western-based "conservationists" from management
control of the new reserves, prompting a powerful European advocacy for Africa’s wilderness
values, exemplified in the vision behind "Serengeti Shall Not Die" (Grzimek 1960). The interests
of the Maasai peoples in the Serengeti ecosystem (and hundreds of other communities in
similar circumstances) were marginalised by a formal discourse maintained between Northern
interests and new African governments.

Post-colonial Africa was launched into an ideologically divided world, and most of the new
governments set about centralising authority and consolidating national unity. The traditional
social organisation of communities was perceived as a threat, despite the fact that it provided
the social cement that enabled states to function as societies (Hyden 1983). Initially, the new
nation states uniformly reached down to command the political, development, and conservation
agenda through their control of the policy arena, with Tanzania actually disbanding their

1
traditional leaders in 1962.1 Across Africa, traditional "voices" were ignored and customary
rules of access to land and natural resources were made subservient to state control. Rural
Africans lost formal recognition of their Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS), especially in the
face of democratic centralism. Governmental agencies administered communal land and
resources for and with the people, leading to the formal dominance of civil communal society by
the state, and communities became dependent on essentially weak governments. However,
despite the state’s attempted cooption of "community," traditional societies remained relatively
intact because the state’s “grasp was beyond its reach."

Since the 1980s, the dominant conservation discourse has been challenged, particularly in
southern Africa. The new states lacked the capacity to manage communities through
regulations and negative sanctions. To be effective, as well as popular, governments had to
provide positive incentives to ensure that local peoples participated willingly in the conservation
of biological resources as an integral aspect of their land-use practices. By the 1990s, the
counter narrative, which supported CBNRM approaches, was ascending, supported by such
global watershed meetings as the IVth World National Parks Conference (1992) and the Rio
Summit. These, inter alia, emphasised the fact that Indigenous Peoples and local communities
were primary stakeholders and partners in a common endeavour. The need for positive
incentives is recognised in the discourse by the prevalence of such themes as property rights,
sustainable use, resource values, and the equitable distribution of conservation costs and
benefits (Munasinghe and McNeely 1994). Resource economics now plays a central role in
identifying incentive-driven strategies that can link the conservation of biodiversity with the
requirement for human agricultural and pastoral land use.

A new form of regional planning that encompasses a mosaic of land-use categories is


indicated, including transboundary contexts. A broad approach linking protected areas with
agricultural communities is far more likely to succeed than plans that are too narrowly based on
conservation areas alone (McNeely 1995; Metcalfe 1995). Ecological, economic, and
sociopolitical issues have to be addressed together. CBNRM addresses the participation of
local communities in the process of establishing local resource management and compatibility in
relation to lands situated in neighbouring areas, whether protected areas, communal, or private
lands. From a community perspective, Transboundary Natural Resource Management
(TBNRM) describes the situation more accurately than the notion of the TBCA, which
emphasises conservation more than sustainable use. Communities must be convinced that
transboundary management programmes do not detract from the gains that they have recently
made. Tension between conservation and development objectives is real, and TBCAs should
not be an excuse for a retreat into the old fortress of "command-and-control" conservation.

During the twentieth century, African communities generally lost wildlife property rights on
their own land and also land rights alienated to state-run protected areas. The policy separated
wild animals from the ecological and economic systems of which they were an inherent part
(Child and Chitsike 1997).

Although governments in southern Africa have been relatively progressive in promoting


sustainable use, devolution is not complete. Wildlife, being both a mobile resource (traverses

1
Inkosi ya Makhosi, Mbelwa IV, a paramount chief in Malawi, asked Tanzanians at the Victoria Falls CBNRM
Conference what they had done with their traditional leaders, as an entire generation has grown up without them, as
the result of an action by an elected (but not mandated) government. The Maasai escaped this fate, as leadership
does not manifest in the individual person as much as in the “age set” (e.g., elders).

2
tenure units) and a fugitive resource (its access rights move with it), provides an incentive for
landowners to cooperate and integrate their conservation goals at a level greater than the
management unit. The “new” CBNRM approach at this stage remains speculative and
experimental, as tentative steps are made to move the paradigm from regulatory (negative
sanctions) to community empowerment based on incentive-driven approaches. This process
hinges on changing perceptions, attitudes, approaches, institutions, behaviours, and
relationships.

3
2. Location of Components of CBNRM in the Context of
TBCA/TBNRMAs

Three archetypal CBNRM approaches, covering a continuum of complementary strategies


suitable in specific situations, have been identified (see Table 1 and Barrow and Murphree,
forthcoming). These approaches are:

• Park outreach, a suitable response for a protected area authority;

• Community-based management for landholders; and

• Collaborative management between land authorities.

Table 1. Location of Components of CBNRM in Context of TBCAs


Protected Area (PA) Collaborative Community-based
Outreach Management Conservation
Conservation for/with Conservation with/by Conservation by
Component the people the people the people
Whose TBCA development TBCA/TBNRM dominated Local community as legal
agenda dominated by PA by PA parties with land entities join protected
parties. Community communities slowly area authorities as full and
neighbours are moving toward some joint equal partners.
subsidiary partners to management
achieve PA responsibilities.
conservation objective.
Who owns PA with conditional The state with concessions Community has legal rights
process benefit flow to toward joint management of access.
communities. and multiple use.
Who plans Joint planning only of Joint planning of multiple- Community often assisted
outreach activities. use access. by advisors/administrators.
Who controls PA authority. Joint authority. Community authority
(democratic/traditional).
Ownership of PA controls relationship PA oversees unequal De facto community, but
resources, with dependent partnership. depends on how well
areas communities. bounded/focused the
tenure arrangements are.
Dominant Enhanced conservation Conservation of PA and Rural livelihoods: needs
objective and integrity of TBCAs through managed met but conservation needs
protected areas and access to multiple-use integrated.
TBCAs. resources.
Fate of PA core maintained for PA core maintained for Where resource is
conservation national heritage and national heritage. Benefits insignificant to rural
resource benefit, but wider shared with local economics or culture, it may
TBCA manifests land- community groups and be lost. Resource
use conflicts and individuals. Use may not maintained when
fragmentation. be sustainable and culturally/economically
species may be affected. valuable.

4
All collaborative approaches must be premised on mutual respect between landholders,
recognised through agreed upon structures, objectives, reciprocal activities, and equitable
sharing of costs and benefits.2 It is contended here that both park outreach and collaborative
management should be premised on a community-based approach when communal land and
natural resources are involved. Partnerships are a relationship of the highest trust, which only
work when parties mutually serve their own and the other party’s needs. In implementing
CBNRM as a program, the core relationship between state and landholders was fostered by
donor-supported nongovernmental organisation (NGO)3 facilitation. While much CBNRM
happens quietly by communities with no formal arrangement, the TBNRMA context is likely to
require some CBNRM formalisation, especially in the proximity of protected areas and highly
valued biological resources. (See Appendix for a contextual snapshot of CBNRM in the
southern African region.)

In southern Africa, CBNRM has many broad commonalities, as well as striking contrasts, as
illustrated below:

• All communities have a rich heritage of indigenous knowledge systems.

• All countries manifest a dichotomy between customary and statutory means of


legitimating behaviour, especially with regard to land and natural resources.

• In few countries do women have security of tenure, in part, because of customary


inheritance rules.

• All countries, except Angola and Mozambique, have a heritage of British-style


administrative and local government institutions.

• Some countries (South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Lesotho) have higher population
densities and hence, face more resource competition than others (e.g., Zambia,
Botswana, Namibia, and Mozambique).

• South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia face land-reform pressures consequent to their
inequitable settler land apportionment systems.

• All countries have to confront agrarian reform in some way, partly driven by economic
adjustment.

• Many countries, especially those with a heritage of centralised political and


administrative systems, face governance reform involving decentralisation of authority
and devolution of land rights.

2
CAMPFIRE in Zimbabwe was primarily designed as a community-based approach (Martin 1986), but it manifests
several elements of collaborative management. The district as the "appropriate authority" must interrelate with
various other structures; including government, ministries, wards, villages, other districts, traditional systems, private
sector, protected areas, and TBCAs.

3
NGOs, in this instance, includes academics and consultancies.

5
• Rural communities in the region uniformly contend with formal state dominance of
informal community systems, rendering them powerless (co-opted, compliant, and
dependent) in the policy arena.

• Communities have spent a century as dependent entities under colonial and post-
colonial states.

2.1 Hierarchies Related to the Management of Community-based


Resources
Today, communities in southern Africa exist under the rational-legal authority of nation-states.4
Recognition of the juxtaposition of customary with statutory institutions is critical in
understanding the utility of "community" as a concept in the context of CBNRM. Internally, rural
communities manifest heterogeneity, differentiated and stratified on several interacting levels:
lineage (position), gender (marriage, inheritance), age, and wealth--each relating to resource
access. However, the statutory dominance by centralised power structures (governmental,
NGO, donor, private sector) means that communities are construed as uniform tenurial (land)
and governmental entities. "Community" in the CBNRM and TBNRMA context could be defined
cynically as "that unit of social organisation permitted to operate as such by the state." The
challenge to fit the construct of a TBNRMA (form) into the dynamic reality (shape) on the ground
demands confrontation (honest dialogue) between landholders and between these landowners
and national and protected area authorities. Farmers are the primary stakeholders in communal
settings because their families have, over time, depended upon the ecosystem in which they
live. Other parties’ interests do not depend as directly and permanently on the local ecosystem
(Dassman 1988).5

Community interests in agrarian matters are usually expressed through hierarchical levels of
decision-making highlighted (see Table 2). At the informal level (micro) of household and
village, several resource access conventions may be operative. These behavioural institutions
interact with a more formal level (meso) of local government and chieftaincy, which, in turn,
must link with the macro level of national law, policy, and its administration. Wildlife, because of
its rarity value, ensures that much focus remains at the macro and meso levels, while less
valuable resources are managed more at the micro, informal institutional level.

4
Max Weber (1864-1920) identified three forms of legitimisation for authority in society: traditional, rational-legal
(bureaucratic), and charismatic. Southern Africa manifests dualism between the first two, with ever-present populist
possibilities for the third.

5
Dassman contrasts “ecosystem” people, who depend on the local resource base, with “biosphere” people, who
depend on global market access and do not directly suffer if a single ecosystem deteriorates.

6
Table 2. Critical Levels in Community Property Arrangements*

Property Rights
Function Institutional Level Stakeholders
Coordination/oversight/regulation/monito Macro State/local authority (RDC)/
ring at district/national level chieftaincy
Common property organisation at Meso Community/ward/village unit
territorial level (middle) (NRC)/grazing committee.
(village/headmanship/district).
Common property management at the Resource users/ farmers/farm
resource user (access) level of workers/households/groups/
individual/household/village. Micro individuals (honey/crafts/thatch/
grazing/hunting/gathering/
medicines).
* Note: See Footnote 6 below.

2.2 Customary CBNRM Institutions (from Micro to Meso)


The customary or traditional community stakeholder analysis in Table 3 indicates the complex
micro and meso institutional framework, conditioned mainly by bloodlines, lineage, and marriage
within which access to land and natural resources is largely controlled. It presents a simplified
outline of the vertical linkages from household to lineage, with a modest gender perspective.
The communal resource base presents an endowment to which many parties within a
community may claim entitlement. Many informal institutions are not recognised or valued by
policymakers and regulators, although their policies may impact upon peoples’ livelihood
strategies. Considering this complex communal structure, it is little wonder that any
“community” would struggle to function as a distinctly unitary stakeholder in relation to “outsider”
parties (e.g., state or private sector). The assumption of the homogenous community is partly
contrived by external pressures and expectations for it to be so. However, for communities to
function as institutions capable of effective decision-making, they need recognition and to know
what their rights and responsibilities are, especially related to land and land-based resources.

2.3 User-group Institutions and CBNRM


If a community is construed as the proprietor or producer of natural resources, then, in terms of
market relations of supply and demand, resource user groups could be held accountable for
their consumptive use. While producer groups, for simplicity’s sake, may be conceived of as
territorial land units, user groups need access to resource niches that may traverse proprietorial
areas to reach the products they need. Pastoralist livestock owners may move from range to
range, depending on the seasons, crossing administrative boundaries as they track rich forage
resource zones. In semi-arid areas, grazing cannot be managed purely within a territory but
requires horizontal collaborative management between area-based regimes. Women, as a

6
Table 2 is taken from an analysis given in a paper by Thembela Kepe (1997) entitled “Environmental Entitlements in
Mkambati: Livelihoods, Social Institutions, and Environmental Change on the Wild Coast of the Eastern Cape,”
Research Report No.1. Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), Dept. of Govt. Un. Western Cape (SA).

7
resource user group that collects Ilala palm leaves for craft production, may come from different
villages with a common interest in a particular resource at the micro level (e.g., Shashe/Limpopo
TBCA).

Table 3. Customary CBNRM Institutions

Community
Interest Group Tenurial Grouping Territorial Location Right of Access
Household Homestead family Homestead area. Access/inheritance
and dependants. Arable lands, common through HH. Control
Household Head Security of women grazing, and access to over arable land and
(HH) depends on HH and natural resources in grazing and domestic
his heirs. village and beyond. livestock through male
HHs.
Village A set of households, Village area. Stock of Mediation of intra- and
which comprises the arable and grazing inter-village access,
Village Head (VH) primary lands and natural inclusion/exclusion to
management unit resources bounded resources, especially
(group) for land and within specific territory common property
resource access. with reciprocal inter- resources. Critical
Presided over by a village access for “gatekeeper” institution.
VH. strategic needs.
Headmanship A set of villages that Headmanship area. Mediates inter-village
comprise the Provides most of the access to resources, as
Headmanship secondary subsistence livelihood well as inter-ward
Leader management unit needs of the resident, reciprocal arrangements.
(group) of the village-based Provides unity and
lineage. households. solidarity for villages.
Presided over by Key coordinator function.
ward headman or
subchief.
Chieftaincy Set of Chieftaincy area. Mediates inter-
headmanships form Provides for all the headmanship access
Chief tertiary management subsistence needs of and overall
unit of the lineage. headmanships, inclusion/exclusion to
Presided over by villages, and chieftaincy territory.
chief (sometimes households. Interface between
paramount customary/statutory
chief/king). management institutions.

The market-related interaction of user and producer groups concerns a relationship between
resource demand and supply. Resource production, in relation to entitlement, presents a
market pressure for allocation of scarce environmental goods and services. This allocation
pressure is likely to be focused around key resource areas (riverine, wetland, arable land,
grazing land, underground and surface water, aesthetic landscapes, wildlife, or forest). Many
resource-rich areas, such as riverine alluvium soils, have had common property systems
managing access to them for years. Table 4 provides a sample of resource user interest groups

8
that may have established conventions of access and operate mainly in the micro and meso
levels of property rights institutions.

Table 4. Community-based Natural Resource User Group

Community
Interest Group Tenurial Grouping Territorial Location Right of Access
Livestock owners Livestock ownership, Common grazing Grazing access
especially cattle and areas at intra- and dominated by cattle
goats, provides wealth inter-village levels. owning; households who
for most powerful Opportunistic interest are power elite in local
interest group. in rich forage niches. governance at all levels.
Artefact producers Often women producing Specific resources User group control
domestic artefacts and areas/niches, through customary
craft work for sale (e.g., especially rich areas access (micro level).
ilala palm basketry). (e.g., riverine); cross- Threatened by formal
village access. access systems.
Food and herb Women producing for Specific resource Access controlled by
producers domestic purposes/sale. niches; cross-village user group with
Traditional healers access. mediation from
produce for local and customary authorities.
export use.
Wildlife producer Wildlife managed/co- Entire village, ward, Access controlled by
groups managed at scale of chieftaincy area set hybrid stakeholder
village, ward, chieftaincy, within district, trust, or combinations of ward,
and wider statutory conservancy area. chieftaincy, and, statutory
administrative scale. administrative territories
linking meso and macro
levels.

2.4 Natural Resource Governance Institutions


CBNRM must be nested within the national legal framework related to land. At the macro level
of the state, only two basic frameworks have been provided, both versions of decentralisation.
National governments have decentralised to statutory or traditional authorities, or some
combination thereof. In no case in southern Africa have communal land rights been devolved to
households and individuals (men and women). There is a critical difference between the top-
down approach related to decentralisation and the bottom-up approach related to devolution of
rights. The relationship between these decentralised governance institutions and community-
based conceptions of ownership and use ensures that CBNRM remains relatively fixated at the
interface between the community (meso) and local and regulatory authority (macro) levels of
communal property management. Table 5 briefly summarises the overriding resource
governance institutions, each of which manifests as a hierarchical structure.

9
Table 5. Public (Macro and Meso) Structure of Community Property Rights

Interest Tenurial
Group Grouping Territorial Location Right of Access
Local Village, If communal land is legally Community manages wildlife
government headmanship, state land, tendency is to through statutory structures
structures and district. link land and wildlife rights to (e.g., Zimbabwe). Contest
local government structures. between statutory and
traditional authorities.
Traditional Village, Where traditional authorities Zambia: chiefs' powers being
government headmanship, recognised as land modified toward democratic.
structures and authorities, traditional Namibia: conservancy, but
chieftaincy. authorities are important unit traditional authority influential.
of management (e.g., Botswana: civil society trusts
Zambia, Namibia). with chiefs ex-officio.
Zimbabwe: traditional leaders
informal and ex-officio.
Regulatory Regulation Protected areas and All rights to commercial use of
agencies through statutory regulatory control natural resources have to be
sectoral of communal access rights legitimated by national
hierarchies. to woodland, wildlife, land, legislation regulated by
water, grazing, and government.
minerals.

10
3. Communities and Other Stakeholders
Given the complex situation regarding CBNRM, communities must be sufficiently organised to
interact collectively and purposively with a powerful set of other parties, stakeholders, or
partners.

3.1 Government and Communities


Government is a complex institution for communities to understand. It is political and executive,
operating through a multi-sectoral set of agencies. It sets and administers laws and policies,
and executes development projects. In the case of wildlife and forests, it is a regulator and, as
a massive landholder, a neighbour. Government's wildlife agency functions as a "gatekeeper"
(regulator/referee) involved in granting quotas, permits, and licenses; collecting fees; and
monitoring and policing, as well as a party with vested interests.

Relationships can be confused when a partner is also a business rival and judge. Greater
transparency is needed on the side of national wildlife agencies because they have a dualistic
role of being regulators and facilitators. Regionally, southern African states are fixated on a
political agenda related to national sovereignty issues, while economic, technical, and cultural
cooperation lag behind. Governments have not afforded civil society much regional
participation or vision thus far. Furthermore, southern Africa’s rural communities, outside of
local authority structures, are not organised or encouraged to represent themselves and
participate in regional policy arenas. Southern African Development Community (SADC)
countries could promote civil society participation through representative associations and in
national- and regional-level planning fora.

The extent to which communities will be included in collaborative management


arrangements by national authorities will depend on what role the latter see for the former, and
whether communities are organised to assert themselves in the policy dialogue. The
relationship between communities and the other stakeholders involved in CBNRM is largely
conditioned by how far governments have empowered communities to be the masters of their
own resources. Resource rights may be contested within communities; however, communities
cannot effectively engage governments until they are formally recognised and have set up their
own community-based organisations (CBOs). In fact, governments tend to see communities as
a subset of the state.

3.2 The Private Sector and Communities


It is the value that the various forms of tourism7 put on aesthetic and wildlife resources that has
been a driving force within the CBNRM process. Communities have been motivated to
reassess their land use by new resource values that can contribute to the development of their
communities and household incomes. Before tourism emerged as a land use, most remote
rural communities had little direct contact with the private sector. The concepts of resources as
tourist commodities and communities as resource-based companies have presented new land-
use options and the need for property-rights institutions.
7
Tourism includes the following aspects of recreational experiences: hunting, photo-tourism, eco-tourism, adventure,
culture, travel, and sightseeing.

11
From a community perspective, the private sector seeks to acquire exclusive access to a
particular resource or area, or to form a joint venture for a particular marketing purpose. The
private sector needs to make formal and binding arrangements with authorised community
agencies, but routinely finds itself frustrated because, from its point of view, communities
cannot make effective decisions within a reasonable time frame. Often, because communities
are rigidly administered, the private sector will attempt to bypass communities to secure
decisions at a higher level. This can lead to a lack of transparency, which, in turn, can lead to
corruption and communities feeling cheated by their own authorities and alienated from “their”
resources.8 CBO linkages at the provincial, national, and regional levels hardly exist apart from
Zimbabwe, where Campfire Association, as a CBO, can represent communities and liase with
the private sector.

TBCAs/TBNRMAs might open up new opportunities for the private sector by unlocking the
bureaucracy related to cross-border tourism and presenting new sites from which companies
could operate. However, unless the TBNRMA is packaged in marketing terms, the add-on
benefit is not clear. The Kalahari Gemsbok National Park (South Africa) increases accessibility
from the South African side to the Gemsbok National Park (Botswana) side, thereby increasing
tourism-generated revenue. The respective National Park (NP) departments have negotiated
shared gate revenue. San communities in South Africa have been granted land rights adjacent
to the park and usufruct rights within the South African portion. The Botswana government
does not view this as a precedent for them to address their San communities in a similar way.
Where communities lack recognised land rights, they may be excluded from being available as
effective joint-venture partners. In such circumstances, they may only benefit from sale of
labour, goods, and services, but lack any leverage based on proprietorship.

South Africa is especially keen to promote Community, Public, Private Partnerships


(CPPPs), where state assets can be linked to community interests in order to leverage their
stake in private-sector partnerships. These arrangements would be a high priority in South
Africa’s Spatial Development Initiative (SDI) planning. Several SDIs (Maputo, Lebombo, Wild
Coast, and Trans-Kalahari) involve a focus on eco-tourism development and are also
transfrontier in nature.

3.3 NGOs and Community-based Organisations

NGOs have played a significant role in all the CBNRM programmes initiated in SADC countries
to date. Some countries have lacked a significant local NGO input and have had to rely more
on governmental (Zambia) or consultancy (Botswana) input. Over time, the NGO role has been
transformed through a process of promotion and facilitation to support and assistance of
communities. NGOs involved with CBNRM have generally tended to be enthusiastic and
committed in performing their role, and have been surprisingly cooperative with each other.
They have facilitated the emergence of community-based institutions and have provided training
to enhance community capacity focused mainly on resource, institutional, and financial
management. The emergence of local CBOs is a necessity if communities are to protect and
defend their own interests. This is a positive sign, although there is still little evidence of that

8
In Zimbabwe, for example, the policy objectives of poverty alleviation and economic empowerment can conflict
when communities are expected to give concessions to groups who may not provide the most reliable or competitive
marketing services.

12
strength or capacity becoming consolidated vertically into national associations (e.g., Campfire
Association).

The USAID's RCSA, which supports CBNRM, has contracted a consortium of NGOs (IUCN,
WWF, ART) to support, through the SADC Wildlife Sector Technical Coordination Committee
(WSTCU), regional linkages among communities, NGOs, government departments, and donors
involved in CBNRM. The SADC WSTCU has successfully provided a collaborative and
comparative thread to CBNRM activities, and the process has enabled a rich learning
experience. In addition, the regional project brought TBCAs to the fore from a community
perspective, where historical and cultural factors probably outweigh even economic
considerations. In 1997, IUCN Regional Office for Southern Africa (ROSA) provided a grant
under the USAID-funded Network and Capacity Building Programme (NETCAB) so that
southern African NGOs and CBOs could be proactive in selected regional and international fora
that impact upon CBNRM in the region. NGOs were supported with technical assistance,
coordination, information, training, and funding to act as interim coordinators of CBO interests.9

3.4 Donors and Communities


The success of CBNRM in the southern Africa is partly based on the collaborative effort of
various partner agencies: communities, governments, NGOs, practitioners, private sector, and
donors. USAID’s Natural Resource Management Plan (NRMP) and other donor programmes
have facilitated a network of vibrant partnerships that provide a support framework for the
CBNRM. This could be useful in implementing TBCAs, although additional parties may also
need to be involved. The SADC Regional NRMP gave many community leaders and technical
parties the opportunity to visit NRM activities in the region, thus providing a foundation of shared
experiences and collaborative regional effort aimed at supporting sustainable resource use and
conservation-based community development in the SADC region.

How will donors ensure that communities are institutionally engaged at local, national, and
regional levels? Community leaders involved in this process highlighted their need for a TBCA
at the Victoria Falls CBNRM Conference (1997). How a donor is mandated for TBNRM work is
an important issue. For example, several NGOs are uncertain whether the Peace Parks
Foundation (PPF) is a donor, implementing organisation, or both. These NGOs do not clearly
understand where community interests fall within PPF's mandate. As PPF has a high-profile,
fundraising approach, there may be a tendency for them to emphasise the glamorous
conservation objectives first and foremost. This highlights the concern of many communities
and NGOs as to whether community interests are a primary concern of the parties advocating
TBCA development. Donors may be formally required to negotiate on a regional and bilateral
basis and establish some institutional involvement of a specific SADC sector.10 The recent
IUCN Representatives Meeting approved a regional strategic plan that included the objective “to
promote and facilitate a transboundary approach to natural resource and environmental
management.” Transboundary issues were stated to include biodiversity, development, tourism,
pollution, and desertification.

9
Documentation on the NGO/CBO project facilitated by Africa Resources Trust (ART) can be found at ART and
IUCN ROSA, as well as with the national NGOs that participated in the project.
10
For example, the SADC Wildlife, Environment or Tourism sector. The tourism sector has been among the first to
establish an agreed upon regional protocol. The Southern African Committee for Wildlife Management (SACWM),
which involves only protected area authorities, is also a significant forum.

13
3.5 Research and Communities
Applied research has been an essential component of CBNRM, and will also have great
relevance for TBNRM-related activities.11 Through baseline studies, case studies and
comparative analysis research have informed all the stakeholders, including communities.
Social and natural science inputs have facilitated understanding of particular issues, conflicts,
choices, and alternatives facing CBNRM. It may be tempting to view TBNRMAs idealistically,
whereas the reality could be less romantic. It will pay to obtain an intimate insight into the
precise situation-specific circumstances that occur in each TBCA/TBNRMA context, and to use
that knowledge to develop adaptive management plans that can be monitored and evaluated.
Research has played an influential analytic and advocacy role in ensuring that both
development and conservation objectives are kept in sight simultaneously. The intellectual
tension created by different disciplines, approaches, and ideological dispositions has provided
an essential climate for viewing CBNRM as it is and within the context of national, regional, and
global processes.

Good projects depend heavily upon good designs. These are most likely to be forthcoming
when the appropriate research is done in advance and the findings and recommendations are
fully debated at all levels. Research is also critical in order to defend policies and establish the
most complete discourse possible. It is essential that critical insights are shared and debated
as a basis for evaluating and selecting policies and programmatic inputs. The advocacy role of
research, through which intellectuals harness their efforts with those of the communities, could
be improved by garnering respect for IKS and active community participation. Research access
to CBNRM situations could be guided by reciprocal agreements through which communities
would be contracted partners in the process. Generally, CBNRM parties need highly applied
and functional research inputs, whereas other stakeholders may appreciate more in-depth
insights and analysis.

11
Many disciplines have contributed (e.g., ecology, rangeland and wildlife management, resource economics,
anthropology, sociology, and the social sciences generally).

14
4. Constraints Facing TBNRMAs from a Community
Perspective

4.1 Summary of Main Constraints


1. Weak communal property rights over land, wildlife, and natural resources raises
TBNRMA transaction costs.

The single greatest weakness of CBNRM is aborted devolution of rights and


responsibilities (costs and benefits) to the lowest appropriate level of social organisation
for common pool resources.

2. Dualistic local authorities contest and raise transaction costs of TBNRMAs.

Contestation between statutory and traditional authorities undermines efficient and


effective management.

3. Confusion between governance and tenure raises transaction costs of TBNRMAs.

Rights to land and natural resources should be with the landholders and not the
institutions that represent them.

4. Community management takes time and has high transaction costs of decision-
making.

High transaction costs undermine the efficiency of CBNRM and TBNRMAs.

5. Large national programmes may marginalise community participation in planning


and implementation.

Programmes may be dominated by the interests of authorities, experts, and the private
sector.

6. NGOs may usurp community mandates to fundraise.

NGOs may not be sufficiently transparent or accountable in the management of access


and use of funds.

7. Implementation may be a top-down process (as TBNRMAs involve national


diplomacy and protected area authorities), reversing gains made since CBNRM projects
began.

Communities may be confused between TBNRMA projects and those over which they
must retain their independence. Donors may allow the TBNRMA process to be
blueprinted into a tight project framework. Communities, unlike other stakeholders, may
be marginalised at the local level.

15
8. Communities will require further skills, capacities, and resources to effectively
participate in the TBNRMA management process.

Access to information and its management are important.

9. Cultural heritage aspects may be subordinated to conservation priorities, but


cultural and biological diversity are equally important to communities.

Gender relations are essentially traditional. Neglect of gender-based resource access


and use will negatively affect sustainability of CBNRM and TBNRMAs.

10. Protected areas may not provide adequate positive incentives to encourage
compatible land uses.

Rich protected areas lie alongside overcrowded and degraded communal areas.

4.2 Constraints Elaborated

1. Weak communal property rights

Early in the CBNRM process, five optimal principles were advocated that apply in TBCA or
TBNRM contexts and rest upon devolution of tenure (access, proprietorship, etc.) (Murphree
1991). These five principles are:

• Giving resources a focused value so that communities can appreciate when


conservation (management) benefits exceed costs.

• Differential burdens result in differential benefits (proprietorial equity within but not
necessarily between communities).

• Magnitude of benefits should reflect quality of management (a positive relationship


between active husbandry and harvest).

• Unit of proprietorship should be unit of production, management, and benefit (dualism


should be avoided).

• Unit of proprietorship should be as small as practical within ecological and sociopolitical


constraints (efficiency in collective action).

The prototype for these principles was established in the mid-1980s with respect to private
farms and ranches in Zimbabwe and Namibia (Murphree 1995).12 Namibia and Zimbabwe
legislation conferred “ownership” or “custodianship” of wildlife resources upon the owners of
privatised land. However, transfer of the private landholder model to communal lands is neither
easy nor simple.

12
Quoted from Murphree in Keynote Address of The Commons Without the Tragedy: Strategies for CBNRM in
Southern Africa. Proceedings of the Regional NRMP Annual Conference, held in Kasane, Botswana, April 3-6, 1995.
Liz Rihoy, ed. SADC WSTCU and USAID Regional NRMP.

16
The community management units analogous to private farms are not surveyed entities,
although they may well exist in the social and ecological geographies of local culture and
traditional authority. They may also appear on the administrative maps of local government, but
frequently these have little economic or ecological rationale. Practitioners and policymakers are
unsure what criteria to use in determining these units, other than they should be small enough
to provide face-to-face interaction for all members. The fact that CBNRM struggles to achieve
this may be good, as these units should be self-determined; but, in the short run, it makes
initiation difficult.

The analogous proprietorial unit in communal lands is far more organisationally complex
than the private firm or ranch. Its membership is larger and internally differentiated, not only in
terms of its membership, but also in terms of its resource endowment and the fact that members
have specific usufruct rights over arable land, as well as collective rights to the communal
commons.

The greatest problem is the tenure status of communities on communal lands who lack
strong property rights (i.e., “the rights of possession, use and disposal of worth”).

These basic principles provide an “ideal type” that CBNRM and TBNRM policies and
programmes need to approximate.

2. Dualistic local authorities

All countries in southern Africa have to confront and reconcile the issue of dualistic authority
over natural resources, typically between property systems legitimised by statutory law and
customary convention. Land rights can be vested in the landholder (freehold or lease), but in
communal systems, where CBNRM mostly occurs, authority is generally located with elected
systems, patriarchal chieftaincies, or both. In some instances, there appears to be an effort to
foster a constitutional chieftaincy where traditional leaders hold authority but their power is
tempered by representative governance. Dualism can be seen in the following examples:

• Authority over access and use may be granted through a democratic system, but actual
management of land and resources is administered through customary communal form
(e.g., Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Tanzania).

• Authority is granted through traditional institutions, but nascent democratic pressures


push for executive accountability (e.g., Zambia, Namibia, and Malawi).

Legitimate authority16 is necessary if the institutional arrangements for decision-making


related to common property management are to be effective. The management of common-
pool resources is also complicated because the joint management of undivided biodiversity may
mean that the ideal unit of social organisation (community management) may not coincide with
the ideal unit that needs to be managed (ecosystem). Ultimately, all human tenurial
arrangements require collaborative endeavour to achieve the correct dimensions of scale. The
joint management of a river means that tenurial systems should coordinate both horizontally
(along the river) and vertically (watershed level).

16
The term authority is defined as the power or right to control, judge, or prohibit the actions of others.

17
Countries in southern Africa and elsewhere are preoccupied with these issues. Those with
a settler past of dualistic tenure (private and communal), such as Namibia, South Africa, and
Zimbabwe, are pressed by the need for equitable land distribution and tenure reform. Countries
with a state socialist and centrist background (e.g., Tanzania, Mozambique, and Angola), where
state ownership was pre-eminent are challenged by land tenure reform to empower
communities and the private sector. All countries have to confront how best to balance
decentralisation from central to local government systems, the relationship between statutory
and customary ones, and the need to devolve clear rights and responsibilities to land and a
“bundle” of natural resources.

Both Tanzania and Zimbabwe have undergone substantial public land tenure reviews. In
both cases, the fundamental recommendation for communal land was that rights should be
vested in the people, the village assembly, and not in the council that represented them. Land
rights were private and individual, first and foremost, and then had to be consolidated into group
access rights, not vice versa. In both cases, the governments opted to decentralise to councils
but not devolve rights and powers to the people.

The conceptual confusion between governance and tenure is, debatably, the most critical
design flaw in CBNRM policies and programmes at present. Natural resource and wildlife use
rights depend upon land rights. The private sector, now fully supported by the globalisation
process, demands legal rights of access to land and natural resources. The indigenous
communal sector has generally only been granted these rights through its local authorities'
councils and chieftaincies, although trusts (Botswana) and conservancies (Namibia) are a
positive refinement. The private model vests private rights in individuals or constituted groups,
whereas the communal model tends to empower institutions before people. Communities face
the challenge of developing common property institutions within the framework of customary
and statutory law. The latter, formal law provides a rational-legal framework, but often the
customary institutions determine the legitimacy of entitlements to specific resource endowments
(e.g., grazing, fuelwood, water, fields, and medicines).

Is it possible to upgrade what are effectively second-class rights into full, registered
ownership, with a diversity of options as to forms of ownership and internal rules? The following
examples illustrate the region's struggles with this possibility at present:

• CAMPFIRE (Zimbabwe) authorised the district council (communal land authority) as an


appropriate authority over wildlife. The district (some 3,000 km2), with some 30,000
people, cannot be compared as a management unit to the private landholder on 100
km2.

• ADMADE (Zambia) allows government to oversee communal wildlife use rights closely
and distribute benefits through traditional authorities (land authorities). There is
presently a policy change that envisages a separation of powers between chiefs and
communities, with the former cast as symbolic owners and authorities while the people
work through elected executive committees (constitutional patriarchy).

• TRUSTS of Botswana are democratically based and operate on the scale of controlled
hunting areas and wildlife management areas. A trust is a legally empowered
community-based organisation that elects members to a board.

18
• CONSERVANCIES of Namibia allow a community to define itself (generally
traditionally) and its territory; once their intent and institutional capacity are ascertained,
they are granted wildlife use rights (not full land rights). The relationship of
conservancies to local authorities has yet to be clarified.

• Community, Public, Private Partnerships (CPPPs) of South Africa. Where a


community has clear property rights, it has the formal basis for a joint venture; however,
in many South African cases, either the transaction costs of achieving strong tenure are
high or the value of the resource is low. In this situation, the government is keen that the
employment opportunities should be maximised and state resources should support
community resources to ensure that the private sector addresses the needs of
previously disadvantaged groups.

3. Confusion between governance and tenure

Cousins (1997) states that, in the South African context “at present the rights, duties,
responsibilities and powers of the social actors and institutions operating at different levels
within the matrix of communal land administration are ambiguous, conflictful and highly
contested." He attempts a “messy matrix” in order to summarise the relationships in South
Africa (see Table 6). Of particular note is the attempt to empower people rather than the
institutions that represent them. This is necessary in order to provide a framework within which
the ‘democratisation’ of land rights can occur.

The matrix highlights the attempt in South Africa to separate governance and tenure
institutions by placing land rights with the people and allowing them to choose the institutions
that would administer their communal land interests. Consequently, whichever local authority
(chief or council) is involved, the institution will have to be accountable to the members in whom
the rights reside. Once a community can settle this issue, they can tackle the common-property
“checklist” related, inter alia, to boundaries, rules, sanctions, selection, and de-selection of office
bearers, transparency, accountability, and constitution-making. Once all those steps are taken,
a community could register itself as a communal property organisation with the same rights
and responsibilities as a private landholder. It should be clear that, if the primary issue of who
holds the land and resource rights is unclear, then the other aspects will be flawed. A rights-
based approach to land and resource tenure would appear to be most in line with the wider
policy environment related to civil society, market, and governance. It is a necessary, if not
sufficient, condition for sustainable CBNRM. Without clarity on this issue, CBNRM will continue
to struggle to accommodate a flawed design framework. The tenure/governance issue
underlies many of the lessons being learned in CBNRM in southern Africa at present.

19
Table 6. Ownership and Governance in Communal Tenure:
A "Messy Matrix" Analysis

Chiefs and Local


Groups of Councils of Government
Co-owners Elders Bodies National Laws

Ownership rights Policy suggests Many chiefs claim Need to acquire Will confer rights of
ownership should be ownership on behalf land for public ownership to
vested in members of the group; most purposes; many members of groups,
of the group; some are resistant to are resistant to on condition that
groups may accept claims to land by providing constitutional
ownership by chief local government services on principles are
or other bodies on bodies; some accept privately-held adhered to (e.g.,
behalf of the group that members are land. democratic
("in trust"). the true owners. processes, gender
equality, protection of
minorities).
Administration of Could elect a Many resist the Could provide Will attempt to clearly
land rights (e.g., representative body separation of land separate ownership
allocation of plots) to administer; OR ownership from administration from governance
could decide that governance; BUT services if co- functions.
local government some accept that owners decide
administers land; their role is that of that this is
OR could accept administrators and valuable.
chief and council as not owners.
administrators.
Land-use Owners and users Could assist in the Assist in Will provide for rights
decisions (e.g., could decide; OR administration and administration of owners to make
location of arable, co-owners may resolution of and resolution of decisions on land
residential, and allow administrators boundary disputes; boundary use.
grazing/wildlands) to decide. OR make decisions disputes; OR
on behalf of the make decision on
group. behalf of the
group.
Ownership of land Co-owners could Could accept that Duty to provide Enabling framework
for public services allow certain lands local government services to all of local government
to be alienated to owns land for service citizens currently legislation, which
local government for provision; many will in dispute with needs to provide a
purposes of service resist local groups and clear role for
provision. government owning traditional traditional leaders.
land. leaders over land
ownership.
Source: Cousins (1997).

20
4. Community management takes time

The management of communally-based resources necessitates collective decision-making.


Collective action faces specific constraints, as follows:

• It is time-consuming because conflicts must be resolved before consensus can be


obtained (inefficient management).

• Correct decisions may be compromised in order to preserve sociopolitical stability


(ineffective management).

• Future interests may be mortgaged to satisfy present needs (unsustainable


management).

The higher the transaction costs of communal decision-making, the less efficient the
management of TBNRMA programmes becomes. The private-sector investor is aware that
partnerships with communities face these problems, highlighting the necessity for devolution to
communal property regimes in order to lower transaction costs of resource management.

5. Large programmes may marginalise communities


Stakeholder interests that are more easily mobilised at national and regional levels may
marginalise community interests. If TBCA or TBNRMAs are perceived locally as elitist, their
sociopolitical sustainability will be weakened. Marginalisation could occur, inter alia, for the
following reasons:

• Protected Area authorities that do not fully subscribe to devolution may see TBCAs as
a way of imposing and enforcing collaborative management structures. By drawing
the TBNRMA agenda up to national- and regional-level governments, they may assert
their influence over TBNRMA policy and process.

• Donors may perceive TBNRMAs as essentially a national and regional issue more
than a local one.

• The private sector is mainly interested in access to resources and tends to leave
issues related to local costs and benefits to be settled between communities and their
governments.

6. NGOs may usurp community mandates


NGOs garner support from a variety of organisations (including urban and industrial groups).
Where these NGOs implement programs for the benefit of communities, transactions and
mandates need to be transparent to all parties. Often, NGOs involved in implementation are
granted access to programmes by governments and do not need to establish a formal modus
vivendi with communities. Communities may wonder what rights they have to funds raised by
agencies that claim to have their interests at heart. From a community perspective, NGOs
should be facilitators and capacity-builders but not the drivers and advocates of programmes
that directly affect community interests without full discussion. Communities are not very

21
accessible to city-based NGOs, and as such, NGOs must be fully transparent and accountable
when their actions may affect rural community interests.

7. Implementation of TBCAs/TBNRMAs may be a top-down process


Top-down planning and implementation is tempting because it appears as a concise and
efficient exercise. In fact, it results in project implementers having to sell or impose their ideas
on communities, which can dramatically raise local transaction costs. The individual TBNRMA
situation may be ignored because of a generalised set of programme objectives and activities.
For example, a large, centrally-run programme can become driven by high-level meetings and
workshops that provide only for token community participation by leaders who become co-opted
by the programme. Potential problems arise because communities rarely reject projects, hoping
to gain some benefits. However, such activities can distort local processes during the project’s
life.

For example, Zambia and Zimbabwe wildlife authorities may take the management of the
Zambezi River and the protected area complex on either side as primarily a matter for their
consideration. The hippos, crocodile, fish, elephant, and river-based tourist resources are jointly
shared, and the two agencies can hold meetings to establish common understandings. The
community issues may only be added on later in a consultative, rather than a participatory,
role.17 It would be unfortunate if communities involved in CAMPFIRE (Zimbabwe), ADMADE
(Zambia), and Tchuma Tchato (Mozambique), situated on the Zambezi river, were left on the
periphery rather than becoming involved in a collaborative structure that includes government
and community as landholders, as well as the private sector and NGOs as partners. The
majority of transboundary situations have a protected area on one side only; therefore, the
transboundary collaboration must include both governments and communities.

National authorities may make TBNRMA an issue where they take the lead role, rather than
one where they work with other landholding and stakeholder interests. TBNRMAs may serve
the “command-and-control” ethos, so recently mellowed by concepts of sustainable use,
landholder rights, and private-sector partnerships. Authorities may move TBNRMA agendas as
a series of bilateral, rather than local, relationships. This may also be reinforced by high-profile
NGO initiatives that seem to pre-empt or threaten national mandates. Where there are
protected areas on both sides of a national boundary, the authority of the protected area
managers is likely to be strengthened, while that of communities could be marginalised.

8. Training and capacity-building


A flawed institutional framework will distort any amount of capacity-building and render
community decision-making both inefficient and ineffective. It has been known from the start of
the CAMPFIRE programme that a contradiction existed between the policy, which aimed to
empower communities, and the law, which effectively empowered statutory local authorities,

17
The Directors of National Parks in Zimbabwe and Zambia stated (to the consultant) that they believed that, where
transboundary communities wanted to relate for positive management purposes, they should be encouraged. They
felt it should proceed on a demand and strategic basis. Both Directors expressed fears that conservation NGOs
would push a top-down process. Both felt that the Southern African Committee for Wildlife Management (SACWM)
was a good regional forum for protected area authorities to establish their guidelines.

22
district councils. As a result, CAMPFIRE has decentralised rights and responsibilities to a
governance institution but has not devolved tenurial authority to the people. People must
engage in communal wildlife management through their local authority; hence, CAMPFIRE is a
governance more than a land-use issue. In addition, elected councillors have aggrandised their
authority at the expense of traditional authorities so people can play one system against
another. Consequently, one witnesses the negative effects of dualism where a prospective
settler can gain access to land through two doors: council or chief. Despite a decade of training
input, CAMPFIRE is flawed in its design and foiled by "Murphree’s law of decentralisation,"
where each tier of governance demands decentralisation of tenure and resists its further
decentralisation.

Institutional structure and function are integral elements of CBNRM. It is ineffective to


concentrate on improved function if the fundamental CBNRM structure is flawed. ADMADE, for
example, is now, after a decade, attempting to move from total support of traditional authority to
state support of a form of constitutional chieftaincy. As long as this has popular support, it may
provide a significant change; however, a decade of capacity-building had been invested before
this critical readjustment of management regime. The relationship between structural integrity
and functional efficiency is central to understanding IKS. These systems are more than the sum
total of indigenous knowledge held collectively by a community because, being contained within
a system of authority, the knowledge becomes functional managerially.

9. Cultural heritage aspects subordinated to conservation priorities


Local communities living in transboundary situations desire cultural access more than traditional
TBCAs permit. For a century, cultural, socioeconomic, and political systems have been
contained by nation states, first bolstered by colonialism and then by centralised nationalism.
While visionaries plan “peace parks,” communities living on national boundaries are frustrated in
meeting everyday needs (e.g., trading goods and services, sharing spiritual occasions, finding a
marriage partner). Across the region, communities must ignore official borders in order to
maintain cultural integrity.

At the Victoria Falls NRMP conference, 23 traditional leaders from 5 SADC countries issued
a joint statement that promoted the establishment of a Southern African Traditional Leaders’
Council for the Management of Natural Resources. The Council’s proposed vision was that
"indigenous members of the southern African community come to understand the need to
manage natural resources wisely and sustainably, through the processes of traditional systems
and knowledge, and thereby improve the quality of life of all people.” In their terms of reference,
the traditional leaders established themselves as an Interim Council whose purpose was to
develop a truly representative body of regional Traditional Leaders interested in NRM. Those
leaders present would consult widely with their peers at home, with the aim of constituting the
Council more fully and democratically later. This initiative has not been adequately followed up as
an important regional initiative, although it is relevant to both CBNRM and TBCA/TBNRM

23
initiatives.18 After an international conference on IKS and Biodiversity, the Secretary to the
Traditional Leaders Council made, inter alia, the following observations:19

• Few African governments, particularly those from southern Africa, were represented.

• Participation of representatives of NGOs and CBOs from Africa was disappointing.

• As a region, African delegations were not prepared for the workshop and, as a result, did
not have a common stand on a number of key issues.

• African delegations and delegations of Indigenous Peoples from other parts of the world
had differing opinions and understanding about the application of the terms Indigenous
Peoples and Local Communities as contained in the United Nations (UN) Convention on
Biological Diversity (CBD).

The report, inter alia, recommended that:

• Africa, and southern African countries in particular, must develop a common


understanding of the meaning of the terms Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities as
used in the CBD.

• NGOs and CBOs in southern Africa should advocate for legislation of


community/communal rights. This should be linked to Article 8 (j) and other related
articles of the CBD. In addition, this should be linked to the review of Trade Related
Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) of the WTO. This will enable them in
developing sui generis (unique)20 regimes that acknowledge, recognise, and protect
traditional practices and lifestyles contributing to sustainable use of natural resources.

Many Western donors and national governments still do not fully realise or accept the
importance of the role that traditional systems can play in CBNRM. It must be admitted that, in
terms of gender, formal access by women to both democratic and traditional authority is rare. It is
the norm at present that land rights tend to be held by the head of household (male), who resides
in his patrilineal home area. Certainly, individuals can, in principle, hold rights, but there are no
examples in CBNRM of formal wildlife rights or benefits being earmarked to individuals rather than
households, villages, or generally higher levels. Outside of marriage, women living on communal
land remain dependent on their fathers or brothers for access to land. Women use natural
resources, but their management ability is restrained because their interests, especially in formal
settings, are co-opted.

18
Traditional leaders present at Victoria Falls made the following selection of interim office bearers: Chairperson,
Nkosi ya Makhosi M'mbelwa IV (Malawi); Vice Chairperson, Chieftainess Christine Eva Mambo Chiyaba (Zambia);
Secretary, Dr. Mwananyanda Lewanika (Zambia).
19
CBD Workshop on Indigenous Knowledge and Biodiversity, held in Madrid, Spain, Nov. 24-28, 1997. Dr. Lewanika
presented a report to Africa Resources Trust, which had assisted his participation through NETCAB funding
(USAID/IUCN).

20
Culture and artefacts as commodities (e.g., music digitally sampled for Afro-rave records).

24
10. Protected areas may not provide positive incentive to communal
neighbours
While parks authorities can readily engage donors and NGOs in a TBCA process, communities
may have to wait for concrete proposals once the TBCA/TBNRMA concept has already been
approved from above. With the notable exception of the Campfire Association in Zimbabwe, no
other SADC country has a CBO organisation capable of participating in the national-level
debates: and even CAMPFIRE does not provide a voice for traditional authorities or women.
For example, a community-based project like Tchuma Tchato could easily be by-passed by
higher levels and would need to assert its local perspective all over again. TBCA/TBNRMAs will
remain a top-down phenomenon led by conservationists, trade interests, government politicians,
and bureaucrats, unless they are supported with full community participation represented by
legitimate CBO leaders. Communities welcome the positive prospects of seeing development
opportunities in their areas, but not at any cost.

The Kalahari Transfrontier Conservation Area has been negotiated between national wildlife
authorities. The South African National Parks and Land authorities have negotiated a land
claim from the San (bushmen) of the Kalahari for 25,000 hectares of land bordering the Kalahari
Gemsbok NP and for land-use rights over half the park. The Minister of Land Affairs is quoted
as saying: “From the beginning, I recognised the legitimacy of the San’s claim. It is clear they
lost their land rights and access to resources during the process leading to the creation of the
park. The challenge now is to come up with a creative package to achieve the community’s
long-term viability”.21

It is salient to recall that, of the southern African states, only South Africa has been prepared
to take a historical perspective of community land claims to the alienation of their land to
national parks. Also, it should be noted that it took an NGO initiative to help the San push their
claim. Botswana remains silent on the implications of the claim for their policy toward the San
(also referred to as Remote Area Dwellers [RADs], along with several other groups). If the first
TBFA to move toward formalised status cannot take account of the communities who first set
foot on the land, then what hope is there for other communities to be considered unless they
assert their own positions effectively. The San peoples span several countries in the western
area of SADC countries. What prospects are there for an imaginative TBNRMA approach that
recognises the great cultural heritage that the San (Bushmen) provide for the rest of the
communities?

Boxes 1, 2, and 3 provide several subjective “snapshots” of current TBCA scenarios.

21
Minister of Land Affairs, Derek Hannekom, quoted in the article "Sands of Time Run Out for the San," The Star,
Thurs., Sept. 24, 1998.

25
Box 1. The Western Limpopo (Dongola)

TBCA Authority. Three countries (South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe). Before countries
agree, landholders within each country need to agree. In Zimbabwe, three landholder categories
(state, private, and communal) could create a conservancy form of understanding before
committing to TBCA. To date, South Africa and Botswana have met; Zimbabwe has not, possibly
because communal participants will impose high transaction costs.

TBCA Land Use. Zimbabwe practises consumptive use, while Botswana has photo-tourism.
CAMPFIRE may hunt the trophy bulls that Botswana wants to show tourists. Botswana’s lions raid
Zimbabwe communal cattle, which sometimes graze on the Botswana side. Zimbabwe ‘s
communal practise mixes agro-pastoral with wildlife, while South Africa and Botswana are moving
into exclusive wildlife use.

Hard/Soft Boundaries. Military boundaries are softening, but boundaries on labour migration and
veterinarian control are hardening. Meetings in Botswana between private and communal parties
have led to a proposal to fence communities out. What equity do communities get when fenced
out? What is the TBCA boundary? Can sociopolitical sustainability be factored into the overall
costs and benefits?

Box 2. Kruger/Bahine and Zinave/Gonarezhou

TBCA Authority. Major stakeholders, thus far, are PA authorities, donors, and NGOs. The
Makuleke community is in prime position with land claim in park on boundary, but this is atypical.
Progress was slow at first, with World Bank project mainly focusing on capacity-building in
Mozambique. In 1999, the pace picked up, and a technical committee of the three wildlife
authorities is meeting routinely. This has been backed-up by a ministerial meeting, and the TBCA
looks set to evolve with much private-sector interest.

TBCA Land Use. Collaboration between state, communal, and private landholders in Zimbabwe
holds much promise, but shows little progress. Gazaland Tourist Promotion Initiative shows strong
local interest. Communities in Zimbabwe and South Africa are known to be interested, but those in
Mozambique remain dependent on state support.

Hard/Soft Boundaries. PPF TBCA map has caused some consternation that TBCA merely
involves core protected areas, with a few communal buffer zones. Serious questions remain about
whether TBCA is a territory or a process that parties can buy into. Hard boundaries will alienate
local participants.

26
Box 3. Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Mozambique (Zambezi, Mana, and Cabora Bassa)
(Campfire, Admade, and Tchuma Tchato)

TBCA Authority. Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Mozambique all meet on Zambezi, each with a border
village (Kanyemba, Zumbo, and Freira), three national, and three community authorities. Zambia/
Zimbabwe authorities have discussed joint management of common resources, and communities
have had informal ties. Positive possibilities for bottom-up, community-based approach is allied to
collaboration with more formal national collaboration.

TBCA Land Use. All countries have a CBNRM project in the vicinity. The Zambezi River is a
magnet for tourism (adventure, hunting, photo), as well as artisanal and commercial fishing
(Cabora Bassa). There is high demand for commercial access and leases, and possibility of a
road to Kanyemba and then north to Luangwa (Zambia), east to Cabora Bassa (Mozambique), or
west to Mana Pools (Zimbabwe). It could provide good 4 x 4 camping route. Communities need
support on enterprise development, marketing, and service industry.

Hard/Soft Boundaries. The area has been a historic centre for early trade (ivory and gold), and
longstanding cultural and reciprocal ties have been reinforced through various refugee movements.
Immediate Mozambican villages are closely linked (familial, trade, and social) with both Zambian
and Zimbabwean communities. Great potential exists for informal local exchange, which
governments could endorse.

Source: Murphree (1995); Wilson (1997).

27
5. Opportunities for TBNRMAs from a Community
Perspective

5.1 Main Opportunities


1. Improved social security and welfare through more valuable, community-based property
rights.

2. Improved livelihoods through diversified, income-generating, land-use options (i.e., may


achieve more optimal land-use value).

3. Improved resource conservation and protection.

4. Richer cultural and social environment.

5. Improved collaboration with government.

6. Improved collaboration with private sector.

7. CBNRM programmes have laid foundation for TBNRM programme and TBCA linkages.

8. TBNRMAs may raise status of communities at periphery of countries and help to get their
“voices” heard.

9. Communities can learn through sharing experiences.

5.2 Opportunities Elaborated

1. Improved social security and welfare through more valuable,


community-based property rights
This opportunity is based on two main assumptions:

• That communal property rights over access to land and natural resources will become
more secure over time for all communities, as well as, in this instance, for communities in
TBNRM situations.

• Natural resources will become more valuable for rural communities, particularly for those
communities involved in TBNRMAs. TBNRMAs will add value to resources already
marketed through raising the scale and profile of local resources.

Social security and welfare are particularly supported by CBNRM activities, as they
concern common property resources and therefore reward groups and communities through
collective rental returns. Communities could also invest assets into ventures (e.g., rental
income, land, and resources). For this opportunity to be fulfilled, a TBCA/TBNRM programme
would need to ensure that community property rights were on a firm devolution trajectory.

28
2. Improved livelihoods through diversified income-generation options
This opportunity depends on TBNRMAs acting as a multiplier of CBNRM opportunities
through attracting investment resulting from enhanced scale and improved collaborative
planning within and between countries, as well as marketing related to TBNRMA marketing.
Opportunities for individuals and groups within communities would relate to labour and sales
of goods and services, as well as investments in tourist and natural-resource related
businesses.

3. Improved resource conservation and protection


CBNRM has already established a foundation for this in many instances. TBNRM
describes the process through which CBNRM can address situations where hard national
boundaries prevent more optimal land-use options being realised. Many boundaries involve
rivers that are key resource areas for community use and necessitate joint management to a
degree to obviate real or potential land-use conflicts. A community on one side might plan a
wildlife land use while one on the other side might plan an irrigation scheme. The Shashi
River (Dongola) presents such a scenario. Collaborative intelligence and strategies could
help prevent commercial poaching. All landholders (farmers) need to relate to their
neighbours to ensure that security threats are minimised and possibilities of joint action are
taken.

4. Richer cultural and social environment

Many of southern Africa’s ethnic communities have been dislocated by national boundaries,
and a TBNRMA approach could genuinely foster a local cultural renaissance. Socially, groups
that perhaps feel marginalised by their location in regard to boundaries would enjoy the
enhanced status and identity that cross-border collaboration and communication might give.
IKS shared between ethnic groups could be harnessed effectively to support TBNRM and give
TBNRMAs a special cultural context. A TBNRMA programme could foster meetings between
traditional leaders, healers, resource user groups, crafts makers, trackers, guides, range
managers, and others. Communities that were a minority on one side could have their pride
boosted by identification with stronger groups across the border. Table 7 indicates the large
number of ethnic groups that span boundaries in southern Africa (Asiwaju 1985).

29
Table 7. Ethnic Groups Partitioned by Boundaries

Partitioned Ethnic Partitioned Ethnic


Boundaries Groups Boundaries Groups
1. Botswana-Namibia Ova Herero, Khoisan Basarwa, 2. Botswana-Zambia Tonga, Subiya
Bayei, Hambukush/ Hambasushu,
Tonga, Subiya
3. Botswana-Zimbabwe Va-Kalanga, Ba-Birwa 4. Botswana-South Africa Ba-Tswana
5. Malawi-Mozambique Yao, Sena, Nyanja, Chewa, Ngoni 6. Malawi-Tanzania Ngonde
7. Malawi-Zambia Chewa, Ngoni, Tombuka, Ngonde 8. Mozambique-South Africa Swazi, Shangaan
9. Mozambique-Swaziland Swazi 10. Mozambique-Tanzania Makonde, Yao, Ngoni,
Matengo
11. Mozambique-Zambia Chewa, Ngoni, Nsenga 12. Mozambique-Zimbabwe Barwe, Ndau, Manyika,
Shangaan
13. Namibia-South Africa Nama 14. Namibia-Zambia Subiya
15. South Africa-Swaziland Swazi 16. South Africa-Zimbabwe Shangaan , Venda
17. Tanzania-Zambia Mambwe, Inamwanga 18. Zambia-Zimbabwe Balocolough, Tonga, Shona
(KoreKore)
Source: Asiwaju (1985).
Note: This table includes some of the major groups; it is intended as an example and is not
comprehensive.

5. Improved collaboration with government


The opportunity for communities to plan and work with their governmental representatives
in a TBNRMA context could enable communities situated on boundaries to improve and
deepen their ties with what often seems a distant institution. Joint planning within country
could establish protected area authorities and communities and landholding parties with a
common vision and purpose, as well as mutually beneficial strategies. Working with
authorities and communities in other countries would tend to foster community and state
authority relations, which would be beneficial to cooperation, coordination, and co-
management.

6. Improved collaboration with the private sector


A TBNRMA might lend a CBNRM programme a higher profile in terms of market attraction
than it would otherwise have. Collaboration with authorities and other communities on a larger
scale would be more likely to present opportunities for communities to meet and plan with the
private sector. The formality induced by the transboundary is likely to promote the need for
communities to develop marketing strategies and joint-venture approaches from which
communities can learn and benefit.

7. CBNRM has provided a foundation for TBNRMAs


Many of the communities who could be involved in TBNRMA developments have already
been involved in CBNRM projects. They have started to address resource property issues, as
well as institutional development and capacity-building. They have an appreciation of
resource values and also some experience in resource and benefit management. TBNRM
can be an extension of the CBNRM foundation and enable neighbouring communities to
compare and contrast national differences and lessons learned. In addition, the prospect of

30
working with protected area authorities holds opportunities, as well as threats. Communities
have a great interest in the land-use practices of their neighbours, especially when it has been
so hard to have direct contact with them. The shared identity with neighbours could improve
local confidence in a better future.

8. TBNRMAs may raise the status of local communities and help get their
“voices” heard
TBCAs/TBNRMAs are bound to provide a higher profile for CBNRM programmes than
these programmes would otherwise have because TBNRMAs have the ability to catch the
urban imagination and attract press coverage. In addition, TBNRMAs will, at times, involve
meetings between parties and partners, thereby raising the level of communication and
interaction. In order to be involved in the policy and programme planning at all levels,
communities will require effective representation. It will be critical that, at all TBNRMA-related
fora, communities have an effective “voice.” Communities are at their weakest in terms of
being able to strategically advocate their interests at the national and regional level. If
communities were able to effectively raise their voice, it would be surprisingly loud, and other
sectors and constituencies would no longer be able to sideline or co-opt community interests.
Well-organised communities could ensure greater recognition and support from government
agencies.

9. Communities can learn through sharing experiences


The TBNRM context provides a process that encourages best practices to be emulated.
Within countries, communities can only compare experiences within a given programmatic
framework; however, in a TBNRM context, they can compare, contrast, and learn from other
policies and programme designs. The tendency would be for communities to rapidly draw
lessons from best experiences and advocate for improvements in their own management.
This could be a rapid learning process, with those behind catching up and improving.

31
6. Interventions To Resolve Constraints and Enhance
Opportunities

6.1 Summary of Indicated Interventions


1. Involve communities from the start of the TBNRMA process.

2. Treat TBNRM as an extension of CBNRM.

3. Improve communities formal resource access (property) rights.

4. Support development of CBOs to advocate and represent community interests at all


levels (local, national, and regional).

5. Encourage IKS and participation of traditional leaders, healers, spirit mediums, and other
persons with special knowledge of culture, environment, and history.

6. Provide training, capacity-building, and technical advice as and when needed.

7. Allow the process to develop before TBNRMA structures are put in place.

8. Support communication; exchange visits; and sharing of ideas, information, and


experiences.

6.2 Interventions Elaborated


1. Involve communities from the start of the TBCA process

TBNRMAs should be taken as a process through which strategies and adaptive


management plans can be made at the appropriate levels.

• Communities must be involved at the start of all local initiatives.

• Communities should be represented at national and regional meetings to voice their


own concerns and to heighten their appreciation and status.

• Support for TBNRMA needs to be developed through active and ongoing participation
in all the processes that affect communities directly or indirectly.

2. Treat TBNRM as an extension of CBNRM

• TBNRM is an extension of CBNRM and should be developed in relation to CBNRM


initiatives.

• The comparative lessons learned through CBNRM should be highlighted through


TBNRM to provide exemplars of best practices and pitfalls to avoid.

32
• Communities should be encouraged to develop compatible land uses and approaches
that will mutually add value.

3. Improve communities’ formal resource access (property) rights

• Devolution of land and resource access rights must be fully supported to ensure that
tenure, as a critical component of establishing a positive incentive framework, is
secure and unencumbered by unnecessary negative sanctions and bureaucratic
hurdles that merely raise transaction costs.

• Ensure that perverse incentives are reduced (e.g., high transaction costs on wildlife
management and subsidised costs for livestock management, irrigation, and dryland
cropping).

• Encourage a differentiation between ownership (supply) of environmental goods and


services and utilisation (demand) for communally-based natural resources.

• Provide institutional support to both proprietorial and utilisation groups, as well as to


the relationship between them.

• Support gender-based resource user groups.

• Help communities to appreciate the capital value of their resource stock and the
benefits that can flow from improved management.

4. Support development of community-based organisations to advocate


and represent community interests at all levels (local, national, and
regional)

• Encourage the formation of community-based producer associations.

• Foster the formation of national associations for community-based producer groups,


including special interest groups (e.g., traditional leaders, healers, and user group
representatives).

• Enable national community representatives to meet other national leaders and to


participate in regional fora as an important stakeholder group.

• Ensure that important planning meetings do not take place without direct community
representation.

33
5. Encourage Indigenous Knowledge Systems and participation of
traditional leaders and healers, spirit mediums and persons with
special knowledge of culture, environment, and history

• IKS incorporates local social constructs of meaning and purpose in relation to the
environment. This should be encouraged within countries and between them in the
TBCA and TBNRM contexts.

• Traditional leaders can provide governance support to the process, and their
participation is vital.

• Traditional healers can share and compare their knowledge and their market
opportunities.

• Spirit mediums can provide awareness of traditional providence in the context of past,
present, and future generations.

• User groups' knowledge and practices can be shared and compared.

• Mutual aid relationships can be identified and encouraged.

• Local history can be documented and shared.

• Culture can be nurtured for internal purposes, as well as contrived for sale in the
tourist market.

6. Provide training, capacity-building, and technical advice as needed

• Communities need assistance to develop their own adaptive management plans,


including within the TBCA and TBNRM context.

• Communities require facilitation in order to develop strategic and project plans,


including logical planning processes involving objectives and activities. They need this
as much to compare with outsider stakeholders as for their own joint benefit.

• Communities need training in developing their own economic institutions.

• Communities need support, advice, and training in dealing with the private sector.

• Communities would benefit from raised awareness of the regional development of the
tourist industry and what it means for them.

• Communities need hands-on resource management training to cope with specific


situations (e.g., problem animal management, anti-poaching, capture, translocation,
stock and range management, and camp development and maintenance).

• Communities need to be able to identify sources of support when needed.

• Managers need to be networked electronically with other managers.

34
7. Allow the process to develop before TBNRMA structures are put in
place

• There is great danger in imposing structures upon people rather than allowing
institutions to evolve on the basis of real need. When evolved through need, the
institutional process is internalised; but when imposed, it remains external.

• TBNRMAs should evolve according to their specific situational and subjective


circumstances and not be moulded into some overall framework or paradigm.

• Guidelines and criteria for TBNRMAs should not be allowed to constrain the potential
for variety and development according to different priorities and motivations.

• It is possible that a set of guiding principles might be useful, particularly to establish


that ecological, social, and economic aspects are all important and interactive and that
the goal should ensure efficient, equitable, and sustainable management regimes.

8. Support communication, exchange visits, and sharing of ideas,


information, and experiences

• Support should be given to boundary-based communities to establish communication


with neighbouring communities in other countries.

• Communities should be facilitated to share information and experiences through


exchange visits.

• A communication toll could be developed to link experiences between TBNRMAs.

• TBNRM should add to the learning process initiated through CBNRM.

35
7. Indicative Principles for Engaging Communities in the
TBNRMA Process

TBNRMAs are transnational co-management arrangements and can draw lessons from multi-
landholder conservancies, which provide an organisation parallel with TBNRMAs. A definition
of the term conservancy has been given as: “a contractually legitimated co-management entity
which involves two or more recognised land and resource authorities formed for the use and
conservation of natural resources on land under their jurisdiction.” (Murphree and Metcalfe
1997). The following definition could be adjusted for a TBNRMA , which does not (at least
initially) need to be as formal: “a co-management area which involves recognised land and
resource authorities formed for the use and conservation of natural resources on land within
and between two or more countries.”

This definition encompasses the organisational arrangements between the participating


landholding authorities--whether state, private, or community. The authority structure and
management framework would depend on circumstances and need bearing in mind that
protected areas may formalise in a top-down way to the disadvantage of communities. A
TBNRMA could be visualised as follows (Table 8).

Table 8. TBNRMA Visualised as a Co-management Landholder Entity


Within and Between Countries

Communal National Park Private Landholders


Landholders State Land (game ranches,
(CBNRM) (facilitates partnership) multi-species land use)

Co-management / Collaboration between landholders within one country


(e.g., conservancy).
TBNRM collaboration
TRANSBOUNDARY NATURAL between communities,
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT landholders and managers
AREA in two or more countries.

Co-management / Collaboration between landholders within one country


(e.g., conservancy).

Communal National Park Private Landholders


Landholders State Land (game ranches,
(CBNRM) (facilitates partnership) multi-species land use)

36
Guiding principles might include, inter alia, the following:

1. Efficiency--Low transaction costs and high local incentives encouraged by:

• An enabling environment that ensures devolution of rights and responsibilities over


resources to local communities, focuses costs and benefits, and removes perverse
incentives.

• Small, efficient government that does not impose high transaction costs.

• Sound and supportive administration.

• Positive leadership.

• Incentive compatibility so that local economic interests in long-term ecosystem


viability are compatible with those of other stakeholders who seek to preserve, or
market biodiversity.

2. Equity--equitable sharing of costs and benefits between stakeholders

• Sociopolitical aspects factored in, along with ecological and economic.

• Stakeholders participate equally in planning and managing transboundary resources.

• Gender equity is considered.

• Respective roles of statutory and traditional local authorities are acknowledged and
used.

• Communities are empowered through secure tenure rights and capacity-building.

• Democratic principles are adhered to, along with transparent decision-making and
accountable authority.

• IKS is respected and supported.

• Partnerships are based on mutual interest, which is encouraged.

3. Sustainability--Intergenerational equity

• Needs of ecosystem management are recognised.

• Process-driven approach is encouraged.

• Adaptive management strategies are supported.

• Financial feasibility is desired.

37
4. Coordination

• Vertical coordination between sectors and stakeholders is supported.

• Horizontal coordination between stakeholders in TBCA contexts is supported.

• Communication is supported (e.g., access to information, encouragement of


dialogue, and support of community participation in discourse related to TBCAs and
TBNRM.

• Peaceful approaches are supported (e.g., dialogue, noncoercion, democratic


process, decentralisation, devolution, conflict resolution, consensus-building,
tolerance, and respect).

38
8. Conclusion

Rural communities are pragmatic and probably support the notion of TBNRMAs provided the
net gains outweigh the costs. This is most likely to be the case if the following are done:

• Stakeholders are clearly identified and their situations understood.

• Constraints to the process are identified and ameliorated.

• Opportunities are firmly grasped.

• The process is well coordinated and led and attention is paid to the guiding principles
relating to efficiency of management, equity between parties, and sustainability.

• That the process is treated as a participatory and cyclical one that can run through
stages (e.g., initiation of the idea, estimation of its worth, selection of approach,
implementation of approach, monitoring, evaluation, and feedback into the participatory
and adaptive process).

Finally, of all factors concerning communities, equity between stakeholders is probably the
most important issue because without equity, socio-political factors will threaten sustainability.

39
References
Anderson, D., and R. Grove, eds. 1987. Conservation in Africa: People, policies, and practice.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Asiwaju, A.I. 1985. Partitioned culture areas: A checklist. In Partitioned Africans: Ethnic relations
across Africa’s international boundaries, 1884-1984, ed. A.I. Asiwaju, 252-259. Lagos, Nigeria:
University of Lagos Press.
Barrow, E., and M. Murphree. Forthcoming. Community conservation from concept to practice: A
practical framework. In (Forthcoming edited edition) Community conservation research in
Africa: Principles and comparative practice, eds. D. Hulme and M.W.M. Murphree.
Child, G., and L. Chitsike. 1997. “Ownership” of wildlife. Paper, WISDOM Foundation, Harare,
Zimbabwe.
Cousins, B. 1997. How do rights become real: formal and informal institutions in South Africa’s
land reform. Vol. 28 of IDS Bulletin, no. 4.
Crosby, Alfred W. 1986. Ecological imperialism: The biological expansion of Europe, 900-1900.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dasmann, R. 1988. National parks, nature conservation, and the future primitive. In Tribal
peoples and development issues, ed. J.H. Bodley, 301-310. Mountain View, California:
Mayfield Press.
Grzimek, B. 1960. Serengeti shall not die. London: H. Hamilton Press.
Hulme, D., and M.W.M. Murphree. Forthcoming. Conservation and communities: Changing
narratives, policies, and practices in African conservation. In Community conservation
research in Africa: Principles and comparative practice, eds. D. Hulme and M.W.M.
Murphree. Institute for Development Policy and Management. University of Manchester and
CASS University, Zimbabwe.
Hyden, G. 1983. No short cuts to progress: African development management in perspective.
Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Kepe, T. 1997. Environmental entitlements in Mkambati: Livelihoods, social institutions, and
environmental change on the Wild Coast of the Eastern Cape. Research Report no.1,
Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies, Dept. of Government, University of the Western
Cape, South Africa.
Mackenzie, J.M. 1987. Chivalry, social Darwinism and ritualised killing: the hunting ethos in
central Africa up to 1914. In Conservation in Africa: People, Policies and Practice, eds. D.
Anderson and R. Grove, 41-62. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Martin, R.B. 1986. Communal areas management programme for indigenous resources. Branch
of Terrestrial Ecology, Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management. Revised
version of April 1986.
McNeely, J.A. 1995. Biodiversity conservation and traditional agroecosystems. In
Conservation of biodiversity and the new regional planning, eds. R. E. Saunier and R. A.
Meganck, 21-33. OAS & IUCN.
Metcalfe, S. 1995. Livestock, wildlife and the forage commons: Prospects for rangeland reform
in a semi-arid communal land of Zimbabwe. CASS Occasional paper - NRM 1995.
University of Zimbabwe, Harare.
Metcalfe, S. 1995. Communities, parks, and regional planning: A co-management strategy
based on the Zimbabwean experience. In Conservation of biodiversity and the new regional
planning, ed. R.E. Saunier and R.A. Meganck. OAS and IUCN. Same chapter (1996) in
Expanding partnerships in conservation, ed. J. A. McNeely. Washington D.C.: Island Press.
Munasinghe, M., and J. McNeely, eds. 1994. Protected area economics and policy: linking
conservation and sustainable development. World Bank and IUCN.

40
Murphree, Mike. 1995. On the road to Tchuma Tchato: An analysis of the planning and
implementation of the CBNRM in Magoe District, Tete Province, Mozambique. IUCN-
ROSA/DNFFB.
Murphree, M.W.M. 1991. Communities as institutions for resource management. CASS
Occasional Paper Series. Harare: Centre for Applied Social Science, University of Zimbabwe.
Murphree, M.W., and S.C. Metcalfe. 1997. Conservancy policy and the Campfire Programme
in Zimbabwe. CASS Technical Paper Series. Harare: Centre for Applied Social Science,
University of Zimbabwe.
Puzo, B. 1978. Patterns of Man-Land Relations. In Biogeography and ecology of southern
Africa, eds. M. J. A. Werger and A. C. Van Bruggen, 2:1049-1112. The Hague: Dr. W. Junk
Publishers.
Rihoy, E., ed. 1995. The commons without the tragedy: Strategies for CBNRM in southern
Africa. Proceedings of the Regional NRMP Annual Conference. Kasane, Botswana, April 3-
6 1995. SADC WSTCU and USAID Regional NRMP.
Roe,E. 1991. Development narratives, or making the best of blueprint development. World
Development 19:287-300.
Roe,E. 1995. Except-Africa: postscript to a special section on development narratives. World
Development 23: 1065-69.
SADC Wildlife TCU/Africa Resources Trust. 1996. CBNRM: A select foundation bibliography
with emphasis on southern Africa. Compiled by M. Taylor. Malawi and Harare: SADC TCU
and Africa Resources Trust respectively.
Uphoff, N. 1992. Learning from Gal Oya: Possibilities for participatory development and post-
Newtonian social science. New York: Cornell University Press.
Wilson, K. 1997. Of diffusion and context: the bubbling up of community-based resource
management in Mozambique. Paper for conference, Representing Communities: Histories
and Politics of Community-based Resource Management. Unicoi Lodge, Helena, Georgia,
USA.

41
Appendix: A Contextual “Snapshot” of CBNRM in Southern Africa

1. Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe have experience with CBNRM-funded


programmes and are developing policies that link communities with wildlife, tourism,
protected area authorities, and the private sector. They have a CBNRM institutional and
organisational infrastructure characterised by decentralisation/devolution of rights,
awareness-raising, and project activities focused on capturing wildlife values at the local
level. They are in an implementation phase, involving the mobilisation of landholding
communities, their organisation, and capacity-building.

2. Zimbabwe is facing programme sustainability issues, but realises the need for policy to go
beyond decentralisation to districts to devolution of rights to the communities themselves
(Maveneke 1998).22

3. Zambia is re-focusing its policy to be less dependent on national and traditional authorities
and more grounded in a democratic, community process.

4. Namibia and Botswana have designed community-based structures, which they are in the
early phase of implementing.

5. Tanzania has pilot, community-based projects (Selous) and the National Parks Authority
(TANAPA) has established a community conservation park outreach service. Given the
country’s favourable new policy environment, it could be well positioned to implement
community-based approaches; but it remains to be seen if the policy will match the
implementation and to what extent the various national agencies can collaborate.

6. Mozambique, remarkably, is establishing several new variations of CBNRM in a changing


legal and local government environment.23 Given its low level of infrastructure and capacity,
there is a premium on efficient policy design that can harness incentives at the outset.
Communities must get a voice in the policy arena as large-scale joint ventures,
transboundary parks, and the like are on the agenda. The World Bank Global Environmental
Facility (GEF) capacity-building project is necessary, in part, to build Mozambican capacity
to collaborate more effectively with South Africa and Zimbabwe.

7. Angola has tremendous potential, but is currently hampered by sociopolitical factors. Its
eastern border with Zambia and southeastern border with Namibia would appear ideal for an
extensive CBMRM and TBNRMA approach. Population density in that region is low, though
key resource zones in arid areas are probably highly prized (riverine areas and alluvial
soils). Possibly, this region presents a genuine possibility for a peace park approach, partly
based on the cultural heritage of indigenous systems centred on the Lozi (Barotse) Kingdom
of western Zambia.

8. Lesotho, surrounded by South Africa, could be poised to find its feet with adventure
tourism, given its spectacular high mountains and rivers. Currently, much of its present land

22
The Late Tap Maveneke, CEO of the Campfire Association, argued recently that devolution needed to move
further down toward communities, but that land itself was under the district. (ART tenure workshop paper,
"Decentralization in Campfire: Current Issues and Constraints.")
23
Mozambique's proto-CBNRM project, Tchamu Tchato, in Tete Province, provides a hint of the potential for
CBNRM in that country.

42
use is under community-based rangeland management. Governance issues are
problematic and, as of recent times, transboundary relations may take on features of peace
parks.

9. South Africa provides an interesting CBNRM context. Community interests have been
supported by the recognition of legitimate land claims by the new political dispensation. The
relatively sophisticated private sector is pressing to formalise joint-venture agreements with
communities in strategically resource-rich areas, driving the need for communities to have
recognised property rights. The Department of Land Affairs (DLA) states that communal
land rights should not be inferior to private land rights merely due to their historical neglect.
It is offering communities the right to form registered communal property associations to
assist effective collective action over land and resources.24 South Africa has a strong NGO
conservation constituency and a private-sector interested in investment opportunities for
tourism and natural resource use. South Africa is now promoting Community Private Public
Partnerships (CPPP) as its brand of CBNRM.

24
This would be along the lines of Namibia's conservancies and Botswana's trust structures, but would include land
and natural resource rights. Considerable extension work is required to facilitate this difficult institution-building
process, but several CBNRM opportunities exist, not least in the TBCA context (e.g., Kwa-zulu/Natal and
Mozambique; Maluleke/Kruger and Zimbabwe and Mozambique; Limpopo environs; along the Botswana and
Namibia borders).

43
List of Contacts:
I would life to thank and acknowledge the following people who were instrumental in providing
me with information and ideas during the study:

Participants at the TBCA consultative meeting and the SASUSG Gabarone meeting,

Botswana Malawi
Joanne Addy - Kalahari Conservation Society Hastings Chingoko - IUCN ROSA
Richard Bell - Eco-consultant Steve Johnson - SADC NRMP
Sedia Modise - Director, National parks
Debbie Peake - Safari operators & Guides
Assoc. & AGM members
Karen Ross - Conservation International

Mozambique Namibia
Bernado Ferraz - Minister of Environment Chris Brown - Namibia Nature Foundation
Howard Geach - Blanchard Concession Jennie Storm - NNF
Simon Munthali - WB, GEF

South Africa Tanzania


Dr O Borquin - Game Rangers Assoc. Patrick Bergin - AWF
Noel de Villiers - Open Africa Deborah Kahatano - EPIQ
Nic Ellengogen -Theater for Africa Rugemeleza Nshala - Lawyers Environmental
Salim Fakir - IUCN-SA Action Team (LEAT)
John Ledger - EWT Mark Renzi -EPIQ NRM project
Dr I Macdonald - WWF-SA Ron Ruyabal - USAID NRMP SO2
Lamson Makuleke -Makuleke Community Peter Toima - Maasai Advancement Assoc.
James Murombedzi -Ford Foundation (MAA)
Conrad Steenkamp -EWT
Achim Steiner - World Dams Commission (ex-
IUCN ROSA)
Julian Sturgeon - ART-SA

Zambia Zimbabwe
Chieftainess Christine Chiyaba - Traditional Willas Makombe - Director NPWLM
leader for Zambezi River area. Rowan Martin - SASUSG
Mr G Kayukwa - Wildlife Conservation Society Marshal Murphree - CASS, UZ
Manyananda Lewanika - Secretary SADC Mike Murphree - SASUSG
Traditional Leaders Association for NRM Calvin Nera - CASS, UZ
Henry Mwima - NPWS, Chief of Research Allan Sparrow - CESVI & BFA
Mr L. Simwanda - Environmental Conservation ZimTrust
society of Zambia Campfire Association Board & Executive
Chiredzi & Chipinge Rural District Councils
Malilangwe Conservancy
Save Valley Conservancy
Wildlife Producers Association
WWF Harare Office

44
i
A comprehensive foundation bibliography was compiled through the USAID-funded regional NRMP. See SADC
Wildlife TCU/Africa Resources Trust (1996). SADC Wildlife TCU/NRMP, Dept. of National Parks and Wildlife, P.O.
Box 30131, Lilongwe 3, Malawi or Africa Resources Trust, P.O. Box A860, Avondale, Harare, Zimbabwe. (It is
catalogued in Pro Cite.)
ii
A discourse must be seen as a major phenomenon of social power, and not simply a way of describing the world.
An important aspect of Michael Foucault’s (1926-1984) conception of discourses was that, in part at least, social
phenomena are constructed from within a discourse--there are no phenomena outside discourse. As a particular
discourse becomes established, it may be challenged by a counter narrative, which attempts to provide a better
explanation (Roe 1991, 1995). This dialectical movement of ideas through time need not inevitably produce an
either/or set of alternatives, but may reach an optimal solution--a both/and “positive sum” (Uphoff 1992).
iii
It should be noted that TBNRMA is a term developed during this study and that, to date, discourse in the region has
centred on TFCAs and TBCAs (Transfrontier and Transboundary Conservation Areas).

45

You might also like